Waiting
by Sin Acies
Summary: Summary: After being saved from Admiral Zhao, Aang wonders at his completely unexpected and unlikely savior. Possible arc in the making and yeah expect yaoi at a later date.


Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Warnings: SPOILERS- especially for 1:13 "The Blue Spirit" as this fic is based during that episode. Mentions of child abuse and neglect, though nothing very specific. A sprinkling of curse words. No beta, but if you'd like the job . . .

A/N: I hate Aang's age! This is sort of a set up for future yaoi, a kind of 'where it all got started' piece. I wasn't entirely sure this was ready to be posted and I'm feeling rather less-than-patient today, so I'm posting it anyway. Lemme know if it sucks. I'm already working on the "sequel", which I may never post if I reread this later and hate it. Yes I am insane.

Summary: After escaping from Admiral Zhao, Aang wonders at his completely unexpected and unlikely savior.

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/Can't be, can't be/ the words roiled wildly around in his head as he gasped, scrambled hastily back, and then up, running- from the older boy who'd been trying to capture him since the day he'd been released from the ice-burg.

The same boy that had just risked everything to come in after him. Rescued him. And was now laying unconscious in the dirt, helpless. They'd find him, they'd know who'd freed the Avatar, his motive would not matter. He had aided in the escape of the one true obstacle lying between the Fire Nation and victory.

And then he was moving- before his brain had recovered from the shock at finding whose face it was beneath the mask. He was moving swiftly, knowing the guards were already coming, that every heartbeat brought the pair of them closer to a fate worse than death. The mask disappeared into his clothing, the pair of blades clenched between his teeth, Airbending Zuko onto his back- stumbling slightly under the weight. Zuko was _heavy_ despite his lithe build, all muscle.

And then he ran as only an Airbender could run, faster than the winds in a gale- but the trail he left at this speed _anyone_ would be able to follow. The moment he was in the forest and he leapt into the trees; tricky since his arms were hooked beneath Zuko's knees, having to stay hunched slightly forward to keep the unconscious Prince from toppling off his back, and compensate for the added weight all at once. There was no time to be careful, no time to be cautious, not with the way those archers from earlier had moved. So his headlong flight was semi-suicidal, one slip and they'd fall- leaving traces a tracker could follow, if they were found. Instinct and a childhood filled with similar stupidities (though none that would've ended in capture/torture/death) got them deep, deep into the woods with only a few close calls.

He was exhausted . . . The adrenaline from earlier was wearing off; making Zuko seem even heavier than before. Surely this was far enough . . .

Once on the ground he dropped the swords from his aching jaw, glad to have their metallic tang out of his mouth and their weight gone. He freed one hand, by bending till he was nearly parallel with the forest floor to keep Zuko on his back, and, with a gesture, gathered a thick pile of leaves against the bank of the sheltered hollow.

Gratefully, he rolled the dark-hair teen off his back and onto the improvised bed as gently as he could. Feeling like he could fly without Airbending at the sudden loss of weight bearing down on him. He sighed heavily and sank to his knees, closing his eyes and taking a moment to thank the spirits for their safe escape.

Opening them, he found himself once again faced with the impossibility of his rescuer. Zuko's face was . . . different like this. The lines of anger, the glaring gold eyes, the clenched jaw, the thin-lipped frown, all of it gone in this unguarded moment of sleep. He looked younger. /No/ Aang amended, silently contemplating his enemy. /He looks his age. Just a teenager./ Not the ferocious, Firebender that seemed to find him no matter how many detours he took and looked at him with such bitterness in his eyes.

He quickly searched the older boy's forehead for signs of the impact that had left him unconscious. He couldn't find anything, not even a lump. He wasn't much of a healer, Kitara and Sokka stood testament to that. He'd only been taught the very basics of caring for the sick and wounded. He knew some of the herbs that would speed healing, bring down a fever, things like that- when he could remember their names and which did what. He knew how to wrap up minor cuts, how to bind a sprained joint, but beyond little things like that . . . He vaguely remembered something about a blow to the head being really serious in some cases, but the monk who'd been giving the young Airbenders their healing lessons had told them they were to get one of the adults should any of them be hurt and that they were not to move the injured Airbender. Not moving Zuko hadn't been an option and there was no one left for Aang to run to for help.

He found his fingers ghosting along the outline of the burn scar, without consciously deciding to do so, wondering how a Prince had ever received such a wound. His eyes narrowed a bit, fingers still dancing lightly over the scar, and frowned. He'd had friends in the Fire Nation, a hundred years ago, and had seen the scars some of them carried from training accidents. This . . . This was far too precise to have been anything but intentional. The skin over his eye had been burned, but not destroyed, as such thin, tender tissue should have been. It had left the skin over his eye tightened, but still able to close- and it hadn't blinded him. And with the way the scar was _centered_ around his eye, the way the fire had obviously swept back and out- whoever had done it had been _close_.

Aang let his hand fall back to his side, eyes still on the young face, an unfocused anger beginning to burn in him. Whoever had done this had done it solely to maim the older boy- careful to spare the eye so that his 'usefulness' was unaffected, no doubt. What kind of sadist did that to someone? And, since the scar was old, who did that to a _child_? But Zuko was the Prince, right? How-? _Why_ would anyone in the Fire Nation do this to their future ruler?

It shuddered through him that the monster that had done this must've died horribly for daring to . . .

Aang's breath hissed through teeth he hadn't realized he'd clenched. No one in the Fire Nation would've done this to the Prince thinking there would be no repercussions, unless the Fire Lord had _allowed_ it. Allowed it . . . or done it himself. The thought brought bile to his throat. What kind of monster was the Fire Lord that he could do such a thing to his own son?

/Evil . . . / Aang's hand twitched, wanting to rise again, wanting to touch the scar as if he could wipe it away, heal the evil that had been done. He clenched both hands into fists that trembled slightly with the anger and tension building in his body. It was a useless impulse and the Prince would certainly not appreciate him taking the liberty while he was unconscious.

Night birds had begun to call to each other again, after he'd startled them into silence with his abrupt arrival. That was a good sign. He sent another silent prayer to the spirits that they'd gotten far enough away, that they'd be safe. He had no idea, really, where they were, only that they were somewhere in the woods.

He sighed. He was further away from his friends than he was comfortable with, that was certain. They were sick. They needed those frozen frogs that crazy hag had told him about. It'd been afternoon when he'd been captured- now it was past mid-night and they could be getting worse and the longer he sat here . . .

Sad grey eyes again traced the moonlit, sleep-softened features of his 'rescuer'. No doubt that Zuko had only saved him from Zhao to carry him back to the Fire Lord himself. Though why he'd _ever_ want to go back to that man, if even _half_ of what Aang suspected was true, was beyond him.

Zuko had never seemed the kind of person that would simply _allow_ the kind of torture he'd obviously been put through; and those were just the scars Aang could _see_, on his face and sometimes . . . in his golden eyes. The latter running deeper and more hurtful than Aang could imagine, than he even wanted to _try_ to imagine. He'd always seemed so _strong_ when they fought . . . but he was just a wounded little boy that wanted to go home, seeking _something_ from the man he called 'father'.

Aang knew all about wanting to go home . . . only his home was a hundred years ago and everyone that had made it home long dead. All his fault . . .

Aang understood seeking forgiveness. Only, he knew that those he would have sought to be forgiven by were long lost and, now, forever beyond his reach. Lost because of a child's fear of being sent away to a destiny he didn't want and a life he couldn't think of living. A rash choice, to flee, to hide from what he was and what it would mean to accept it- and it had cost him everyone he'd loved and cost the world a hundred years of war.

Aang knew all about being forced into becoming something he'd never wanted to be . . . and maybe . . . Zuko was more like him than he'd ever thought possible. He'd come after him, swearing death and destruction to claim him, words saying he'd do anything to capture the Avatar and yet . . .

And yet . . .

There was no blood on the blades.

Of course, it could be assumed that Zuko had not wanted to kill his own people, but to have risked so much and fought so desperately . . . he hadn't even _wounded_ any of them with the blades. He had not destroyed the Southern Water Tribe for their sheltering of the Avatar. He had not destroyed Kyoshi . . . he'd set fire to their homes in the battle, fought the warriors of the small village with ruthless efficiency- without killing _any_ of them. So far as Aang knew, Zuko had never killed _anyone_ in his attempts to capture him. And he had never demonstrated the kind of casual cruelty and utter ruination that Aang had slowly come to see as the Fire Nation's modus operandi. Zuko wasn't anything like that bastard Zhao. When Zuko'd taken him that first time . . . He'd never taunted him with deaths of his people . . . He'd never spoken of torture or . . . anything beyond taking him to his father. Aang didn't know if the hurtful words and frightening threats would've come latter; didn't know if Zuko would've come to gloat over his victory, but somehow . . . he didn't think so. And he didn't know if it was simply because Zuko didn't _care_ what happened to the Avatar after he delivered him to the Fire Lord and his 'honor' was restored or if . . . maybe . . . he didn't want to think about it, didn't want to face the truth of what would be done to the boy once he was in the Fire Lord's cells. And of all people, Aang suspected Zuko knew better than most what that fate was likely to be.

Zuko wasn't cruel. Oh, he was angry and bitter and made a show of teeth at their every encounter that would put a rabid flying bison to shame, but . . . he wasn't cruel. Not really. Aang knew he'd said a few things to Kitara that had bitten deep, teasing her with her mother's necklace . . . But he hadn't _hurt_ her, not like Aang knew he could've . . . a thought that turned his stomach every time his brain brushed close to the memory.

And Zuko had held Kitara for _hours_ before the pirates had found and captured him and Sokka. Great Spirits, the things they could've _done_ to her! Even if Zuko didn't personally enjoy . . . rape . . . Aang was sure one of the pirates would have been more than willing. He'd gotten the sense, when Kitara had told him and Sokka about it later, that it had been suggested. Apparently, though he'd whispered taunts in her ear the entire time- that she was doomed, Sokka would die in front of her, etcetera- he'd also stayed very close to the bound girl, one eye on the few pirates that had remained behind. General Iroh had set up a small tea ceremony for himself, close enough to watch Zuko's back and the night-dark woods at once. She'd told them that the few times the pirates had suggested "interrogating" her a bit more forcibly, Zuko had shot them down quickly, and finally hissed that if the matter was brought up again he'd make the speaker regret it.

She'd seemed confused about it all. She doubted she'd have stood up to torture very long, had been terrified that eventually, as the hours passed, Zuko would allow the pirates to do as they liked with her as long as it got him the Avatar.

But he hadn't. Hadn't even considered it from what Kitara'd said.

He might have been somewhat sheltered as a child, growing up in a temple of Airbenders, a temple of mostly harmless monks . . . _Mostly_ harmless . . . because, when he'd been around eight or nine, there'd been one who'd molested one of the other boys. He remembered it clearly, because it had been . . . one of the most terrible things he'd ever known to happen and it had been the event that forced his eyes open to some of the terrible possibilities of reality, to the awful things a person was capable of. Even though the man had been, not only an Airbender, but a monk and a teacher he had still hurt one of his charges in possibly the most traumatic way an adult could hurt a child.

He'd read scrolls of old wars in his teaching, of the things people had done, but they'd all been _stories_ to him until that event. And then it had all become so sickeningly _real _that for months he wouldn't read the scrolls- the scrolls that only _he_, out of all the other children, had been given to study. He knew why they'd made him read such terrible things now. He was the Avatar and they'd known, perhaps before he'd been born, that whispers and rumors of war were already spreading through the four countries. They'd known that he would have to be the one who would be faced with these things, the one who _fixed_ them, the one who stopped them.

He wondered if they'd known what had happened-

He didn't want to think about that.

Didn't want to think about the possibilities of what would happen if the Fire Nation ever held him for longer than a few hours. Didn't want to think about the dark promise implied in Zhao's words or the way cruel eyes had swept over his body; and there'd been another promise in their cold depths, one that had sent icy terror burning through the boy's veins. He'd struck back at that; not the threat of 'just barely', not to be brave, but in refusal to allow fear to bind him, remembering the slaughter of his people and changing the fear into anger, defiance.

Zuko stirred slightly and Aang held his breath, unconsciously leaning away, both from the possibly waking Prince and the thoughts clouding his mind. He didn't want to be captured, didn't want to be hurt, didn't want to fail the world again. Didn't want Zuko to wake up and do exactly what he'd do- try to take him away. And whether the older boy cared or not- what would follow would be all of Aang's fears come true.

But Zuko didn't wake, not yet, and Aang released a slow, shuddering breath.

The Prince wasn't cruel, wasn't anything like the others, was maybe . . . not a bad person at all. He was hunting Aang only because he was the Avatar and, thus, his way back home, his way to prove himself worth something to a man Aang was starting to think wasn't really a man at all, but a monster. But Zuko was human enough. Human enough to want to go home, to want his father's love, to want a place to belong- and human enough that he didn't kill people, maybe didn't ever _want_ to have to kill another person.

Was he human enough to see beyond his own dreams and look at the suffering of the world around him? Was he human enough to see it and _care_ enough to do something? Was there enough of that wounded boy he'd only seen flashes of, to want to help save people from the things he himself had suffered? Or was there so much of that wounded boy, hidden so well beneath the mask of hatred and purpose, that he would never be able to break free of his father's hold on him?

Was there enough 'Zuko' left in the Prince to see the 'Aang' in the Avatar?

And . . . if he tried . . . could he reach him?

/Kitara, Sokka . . . Please be okay./ He couldn't leave Zuko here. He couldn't leave him here where he could still be found by Zhao's men. He was defenseless and Aang could no more leave him than he could take him back to the cave where his friends lay, sick and untended.

He hated himself for it- for being caught, for sitting here while his friends suffered, for being unable to leave Zuko where he'd fallen when he knew, he _knew_, that the older boy's intentions had never been to free him, just change his cells. Zuko hunted him, endangered his friends . . . And had come into a fortress full of Firebenders to get him. He must've known that his chances of success were small. He must've known what would happen to him should he be caught trying to 'save' the Avatar.

Aang thought of Shaiya, the Fire Sage who'd helped him speak to Roku for the first time, and the fact that in if the man had survived the collapsing temple . . . He'd paid for his loyalty to the Avatar with his life, one way or another. Aang hoped he'd died in the temple- even that death was preferable to what the Fire Lord would do to _anyone_ he found had helped the Avatar.

Zuko'd never killed anyone that'd helped him. Kyoshi was testimony enough. Even after Aang had put out all the fires with the help of the giant eel, Zuko could've let his men continue the killing. And while it was possible that he'd simply judged following the Avatar too important to extract punishment on the village, Aang just couldn't believe it of the older boy. Zuko had been fighting the warriors while still _looking_ for him and he hadn't killed them- beat the shit out of several of them, maybe scarred a few with his fire, but he hadn't _killed_ them.

Just like he hadn't killed the men who'd been doing their damnedest to kill _him_ earlier. Save for the few that had been flung off the walls- and all but one of those falls had been Aang's doing- the Avatar knew the Prince hadn't even really wounded anyone. Even the guards outside his cell hadn't been killed, only knocked out and/or tied up.

He thought about the narrow escape. The fact that, for a few adrenaline-flushed minutes, they'd trusted their lives to eachother, been on the same side. Looking back at it, they'd worked together amazingly well together. He'd _felt_ Zuko's surprise when he'd come back after the guards had cut him off, separating them. Aang could've made it through the gate, just the first of three, true, but he'd come back to help the masked stranger who'd saved him. Zuko knew he could've made it, knew how fast he could run- probably better than anyone, he grinned a little at the thought- but Aang had armed himself and come back after him. And it had surprised the young Prince, shocked him- enough that he'd faltered in his fighting for a heartbeat. But had still had the sense to jump, so Aang's second wave of air could take out the guards behind him.

He'd _seen_ the shock run through the Prince when Aang had pointed his improvised staff at him before launching him to the top of the wall, like he thought Aang was going to attack, before he'd found himself one leap closer to freedom.

Zuko'd recovered from the trick amazingly fast- enough that he rolled when he hit the top and come immediately to his feet, preparing for an attack from both sides. With both arms out it was beautifully simple for Aang to wrap his legs around the man and lift the both of them into the air. And every ounce of effort he had was put into _keeping_ them in the air.

The Prince started at the unexpected contact, but, if he was at all amazed by Aang's efforts to fly them both to the next wall, he was too busy keeping spears out of them to show it. Aang was really grateful to be hole-free, but the broken spear he'd used had _not_ been designed for Airbending, and Zuko's twisting didn't help at all.

He'd just barely gotten them to the top of the second wall when he dropped them both roughly to the metal. He remembered, when he'd gone for his staff- and almost gotten into the kind of close-quarters combat they _really_ didn't have time for- and Zuko had grabbed his attacker and thrown him off the wall.

His smile took on a slightly bitter twist as he realized that, like everything else, Zuko had done it because he needed him alive. To regain his 'honor'.

He'd blown the remaining guards off the wall, not caring where they landed. Then had come the bamboo ladders and his last suicidal plan. A plan that had _worked_ . . . until Zhao had set fire to the last ladder and they'd been forced to jump. They'd been so close to making it. He remembered Zuko crushing him against the stones, as he tried, with one hand, to keep them from falling when Aang had failed, the rest of his limbs locked tightly around the Avatar.

They'd fallen anyway. And then the Firebenders attacked and Aang had instinctively spun his partner behind him, throwing up an air shield to protect them.

Zhao's damning comment that he must be taken alive.

The sharp bite of metal at his throat had been the last thing he'd expected- until Zhao ordered the gate to be opened. Shocked, he realized that they were going to get out. They'd be free and he'd be able to thank his masked friend. The arrow- one of _theirs_ he had no doubt- had come so quickly through the darkness that Aang hadn't really seen it.

He'd watched his savior fall, actually lifted off his feet by the force of the strike. He'd been unconscious before he hit the ground, swords slipping from hands that could no longer feel them. Horrified that his friend had been killed he'd whipped around and noticed the familiar scar peeking at him from behind the mask. Remembered throwing up clouds of dust to prevent the archers from pinning him again and, hands trembling faintly, he'd gently turned his rescuer's head back towards him, his brain starting a silent mantra of 'no way, no way, no way in hell'.

Nothing had ever shocked him as badly as finding Zuko behind the mask. He'd almost fled then, before hesitating, turning to see, through the settling dust, the approaching foot soldiers.

If they'd found Zuko . . .

And so here they were, Zuko having passed, thankfully, from unconsciousness into true sleep. Aang hoped he wasn't badly wounded, he hadn't felt a bump on the teen's forehead and in the dim light the moon granted he wasn't sure if there was a bruise or not. The mask- and he reached inside his clothing and held it in his hands, noticing the weight of the thing, the thickness, the fact that it had barely been chipped by the arrow, and wondered what the hell it was made of. So Zuko would live to hunt him another day, it seemed. Somehow . . . that didn't seem so bad right now, as he laid the mask near the other's head.

And there would be no debt now, though if he was logical about it, Zuko's intentions had always been more or less the same as Zhao's. But he'd saved him from that cell and Aang had saved him whatever punishment the banished Prince would've suffered.

There was no debt between them.

And yet, he stayed. He stayed and protected Zuko, when he really should have been trying to find more frozen frogs for his friends. It was one more tally on a long lists of stupid things he'd done in his life, to sit here and wait for Zuko to wake up so the older boy could continue with _his_ plan to capture the Avatar.

He was a fool.

He was a fool for not leaving Zuko where he'd fallen. He was a fool for bringing him here. He was a fool for staying to make sure he wasn't found by Zhao or eaten by some wild animal. He was a fool for placing his friends' lives in unknown jeopardy while he sat here, protector to the Fire Nation's banished Prince.  
He was a fool for wondering if Zuko could be saved from himself.

More a fool for wondering if _he_ could be the one to do it.

He leapt to one of the large roots sheltering the small hollow, settling in to wait for Zuko to wake. Let him be a fool, then. He was the Avatar, after all, and he couldn't leave anyone to just die, not when he could prevent it. He was supposed to bring the world back into balance and he couldn't do that by destroying all the Firebenders. That wouldn't save the balance; that would destroy it.

Everyone kept saying he had to defeat the Fire Lord. Like that was all it was going to take. Defeat the Fire Lord and, like magic, the war's over and the last hundred years is forgotten and everything goes back to the way it was.

Great Spirits, if _only_ it was that simple.

His grey eyes studied the Prince in the moonlight as his mind tripped and stumbled down the road that lay ahead of him. The Fire Nation was hated, now, after a hundred years of war and cruelty and suffering. He didn't just have to defeat Ozai; he had to make sure that _after_ he defeated the Fire Lord another Firebender didn't just step up to keep the war going _and_ make sure the Earth Kingdoms and Water Tribes didn't destroy the entire damn country for revenge.

Balance. How the _hell_ was he supposed to set the scales right again now?

And he only had till the time that damn comet returned to become the Avatar in fact and not in just name. Otherwise, Ozai would finish what his grandfather had started and there would be no hope left at all.

/Great Spirits/ he silently pleaded/what am I going to do/

He didn't expect an answer and wasn't surprised when none came. Just the soft sounds of the wind teasing at the leaves all around him and the call of night birds and the barely audible sound of Zuko's breathing.

He sat there, helplessly bound to watch over Zuko and pray that nothing happened to his friends. If anything befell his friends while he sat here . . .

No. He couldn't think of that. Couldn't. Because he _had_ to stay here until the Prince woke up. Allowing himself to imagine what _might_ be happening to Kitara and Sokka would do nothing but shred what remained of his already tattered nerves.

He watched daylight slowly creep into the sky above him, though it would be hours yet, before that light touched them so deep in the forest. He let his thoughts slide away and take his worries with them as he listened to the world wake up around him. It was almost like meditation, only he didn't focus inwards, but outwards, letting himself feel the life all around him, especially the life of the sleeping Prince laying on the little bed of leaves.

It brought him some measure of peace. He'd been trained like this since before he could remember and it was easy to slip into the place where his thoughts were far away and the life of nature was his own. He hadn't done this since he'd woken from his hundred year sleep- hell, he hadn't had the time. Muscles relaxed that he hadn't even known where knotted with tension, his heart felt lightened and hopeful, his destiny far away, and for a too-short while he remember what it felt like to be at peace.

He barely noticed the hours slipping past as dawn blossomed into day, just let himself enjoy it. The monks had always taught that the troubled mind would find the answers he was searching for in the peace of nature, that a person could find the answers to questions he didn't even know needed asking through meditation.

So closely was he interwoven with the ebb and flow of life all around him that he knew the exact moment when Zuko's mind began to wake up, just as the first rays of mid-morning were lancing through the trees and painting the forest in shafts of light. He let a bit more of his attention focus on that spark of waking life, bringing more of himself back the closer Zuko came to waking, but not quite letting go of the meditation.

And then, before the teenager woke, he pulled his spirit as fully back to himself as it ever was- though, in reality, some deeper part of him was _always_ linked into the flow of all the life in the world, to the balance of nature. For all that Zuko had cut him free of the manacles chaining him in that cell and then fought with him to get them both free of the fortress, it had all been an effort to chain him up in his own dungeon until he could be delivered to the Fire Lord. And even though Aang had saved him- picked up his unconscious body and run when leaving him would have been the _sane_ thing to do . . . Aang had no illusions that Zuko was going to wake up and be anything close to grateful. A little thing like Aang saving his life wasn't going to change the game plan.

Aang let his focus narrow down to the Prince who was slowly coming around. He could feel the increasing spikes in the older boy's conscious, proof enough that he was about to wake up.

It _should_ have been enough.

It should have been enough to know that Zuko would be awake and capable of taking care of himself in another few moments. Aang was free to go help his friends. He should be getting up, leaping into the trees, and be _gone_ by the time the other's eyes opened. Zuko would be fine now. It should have been enough.

Somehow, it wasn't.

Aang didn't move, not even to look at the waking teen, and he wasn't even sure _why_. He watched golden eyes slit open to find the green/gold of the forest above him, saw the tell-tale signs of confusion and maybe pain in the now-animated lines of his face. Zuko's head turned towards him and a slight groan slipped past his lips-

And Aang was speaking, surprising himself, not sure where the words were coming from or why he was saying them at all. Not sure why he was talking to the confused Prince when he should be hurrying back to his friends instead of saying aloud things he'd barely allowed himself to _think_ about. In another minute Zuko's head would clear and he'd attack him again. Why the _fuck_ was he . . ?

Oh. He finally turned his face to Zuko and met those golden eyes that for once were not glaring at him. Zuko was awake and looking at him in confusion and . . . sympathy, maybe, Aang couldn't tell. But he was awake. And he was _listening_.

Aang gave the backhanded offer of friendship with a sad smile and questioning eyes. He knew the answer, of course. He knew that this one night would not be enough to change everything for the Firebender. But for a handful of heartbeats, he got to see _Zuko_, got to speak to him.

And, for the first time, Zuko saw Aang and not the Avatar.

His question hung in the air, weighted with silence. It was something of a miracle that Zuko actually let it hang between them for a small eternity- before the Prince sent a blast of fire at him.

Aang had expected it- had expected it to come sooner than it did. He was up in the trees and gone. Kitara and Sokka still needed frozen frogs to suck on. Every day brought them closer to the end of summer, Sozen's comet, and the end of the world. He'd done what he could for now.

He was exhausted . . . and stupidly disappointed. He'd known one night, one fight against a common enemy, and one moment of honesty on his part wouldn't change everything between them. The Prince was driven by a purpose that he believed defined his entire existence. And beliefs would not be changed so easily.

But deep inside him Aang felt a tiny spark of hope flicker and begin to burn.

Maybe . . . one day . . . Maybe . . .


End file.
